The commander of Iran's navy has warned neighboring Azerbaijan about its purchases of Israeli missiles, and said that Tehran "is monitoring the situation." From a report from the Fars News Agency:

Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari called the Caspian Sea as the Sea of peace and friendship, and said the recent Azeri missile procurements from Israel have harmful impacts on regional peace and stability.

"We have announced many times that the Caspian Sea is the Sea of peace and friendship and the littoral states should provide its security through cooperation with each other but certain sides adopt such measures (purchasing Israeli missiles) through coordination with others," Sayyari said in a press conference in Tehran on Sunday, commenting on Azerbaijan's recent purchase of Israeli Gabriel-5 missiles.

"Anyhow, Iran is not heedless of the issue and is monitoring the situation," he added.

Recall that the Gabriel-5 missiles were part of a $1.6 billion weapons purchase that Azerbaijan made from Israel last year. That news raised a splash back then because of the talk of a looming U.S. and/or Israeli attack on Iran (remember those days?). Azerbaijan was likely never going to get involved in that conflict, but it has its own security issues with Iran, especially on the Caspian.

The U.S. military has abandoned plans to set up facilities in Almaty, Baku and/or Bishkek to help get rid of excess equipment from its operations in Afghanistan, saying they were unfeasible. The Defense Logistics Agency, the military organization that handles shipments of cargo to and from Afghanistan, announced a series of tenders (for Almaty, Bishkek in March 2013 and then cancelled them in April.

The so-called "retrograde" from Afghanistan is big business, estimated to cost the U.S. up to $6 billion. And along the way, the U.S. will be giving away a lot of the equipment it has, both military hardware and all of the other civilian equipment (e.g. office furniture, air conditioners) that the U.S. has brought to Afghanistan. So far the U.S., however, has not given too many details about how all this will work, what goods are on offer and who will get them. And DLA officials who have spoken to The Bug Pit have said that they are only in the early stages of working this all out, although the pullout is scheduled to start next year.

The DLA solicitations all contained similar descriptions of the work to be done, essentially to set up warehouses/logistics hubs for getting rid of equipment from Afghanistan:

A South Korean Chang Bogo class submarine, soon to be in Azerbaijan's arsenal? (photo: US Navy)

Azerbaijan has reportedly expressed an interest in buying $3 billion worth of weaponry from South Korea, including several items for its nascent navy. That's according to a Korean newspaper report citing South Korean lawmakers and passed on by Azerbaijan news agency APA. Azerbaijan's shopping list reportedly includes two submarine boats, naval destroyers, transport ships, T-50 training planes, attack helicopters, K-9 self-propelled artillery vehicle, drones, and fire control systems. The Azerbaijanis reportedly made clear their intentions during a visit of South Korean parliamentarians to Baku in May.

But the Korean story points out two reservations that Seoul has about such a sale: the danger of angering Russia and the fear of destabilizing the South Caucasus. One of the lawmakers, Kim Kwan-Jin, said "We still have to decide for ourselves, is it worth it to deliver arms to a country which has a territorial dispute with another government," he said, referring to the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the territory of Nagorno Karabakh. But he added: "Azerbaijan expressed a very strong interest and desire to buy our weapons." (Note: though the news stories out there identify Kim as a member of parliament, South Korea's defense minister has the same name and it's not clear if it's the same person.) And the South Korean ministry of foreign affairs is reportedly "generally against" the sale, recommending that the defense ministry "show special caution and restraint."

Armenia has reportedly bought long-range rockets from China, in what would be both an escalation of the rocket race between Armenia and Azerbaijan and a dramatic entry of China into the regional conflicts of the South Caucasus. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported:

Armenia has acquired Chinese multiple-launch rocket systems with a firing range of up to 130 kilometers, a military source in Yerevan told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am) on Monday.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the source declined to specify the quantity of the AR1A systems obtained the Armenian military and the dates of their delivery or give other details of the alleged acquisition.

The Ministry of Defense declined to confirm or deny the report, but that's not unusual for Armenia's secretive MoD So assuming the report is true, how should we interpret it?

In an analysis for Regnum.ru, David Arutyunov puts it in the context of Azerbaijan's recent purchase of Russian Smerch multiple-rocket launch systems, of which the Chinese AR1A are an upgraded version (for example, the Chinese rockets have a range of 130 kilometers, versus 90 kilometers for the Smerch). "A tendency is noticeable over the last decade in which Azerbaijan and Armenia are giving priority in their strategy of arms development to MRLS of great distance and caliber," he writes. And those systems, he notes, would be useful for attacking not just military formations but also strategic economic sites.

Azerbaijan's press seems to have largely ignored the news, but one military expert quoted by Day.az didn't try to hide his contempt:

"They bought MRLSs from China? For God's sake. Let them buy as many as they want." Thus responded Azerbaijani military expert Uzeir Djafarov to this news...

Images broadcast worldwide of Turkish protesters fleeing the vehicles since demonstrations swept the country in June may help generate business for the Izmir-based company in nations from Brazil to Libya that face social unrest, Chief Executive Officer Mehmet Katmerci said. Sales of dispersion vehicles will rise six-fold this year, he said....

“There’s huge interest in our TOMAs,” Katmerci, 40, said in an interview in Izmir on Aug. 13. “People saw through the world media that Turkey is able to produce such vehicles.”

TOMA, incidentally, is the Turkish acronym for "vehicles to intervene in social incidents," which sounds a lot cleaner than "water cannon." In addition to Brazil and Libya, the company reportedly sees Azerbaijan as a growth market. Not surprisingly, since Baku has already bought a number of TOMAs and gets frequent use out of them, including in protests just this weekend (though it's not clear if those water cannons were TOMAs or another model).

Russian President Vladimir Putin led a high-powered delegation to Baku this week, and security issues seemed to be high on the agenda, leading to renewed speculation about whether the traditional geopolitical allegiances in the South Caucasus may or may not be shifting.

The fact that the delegation included such a large number of heavyweights spoke to the significance of the visit. In addition to Putin, it included Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, Energy Minister Alexander Novak and the heads of Russia’s biggest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil. Also along for the visit were some ships from Russia's Caspian Flotilla and the fleet's commander, Vice Admiral Sergey Alekminsky. Putin's remarks after his meeting with Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev focused mainly on economics and business ties, but also touched on security:

During our talks we paid a great deal of attention to resolving problems in the Caspian region. We are interested in seeing this region become one in which peace and cooperation reign. There are still many unresolved issues here, relating to security, border delimitation, conserving biological diversity in the Caspian Sea and so on. We have a vested interest in resolving all these problems, naturally taking into account the interests of all littoral states.

It is symbolic that our talks coincide with a friendly visit of a detachment of the Russian Caspian Flotilla to Baku. The Dagestan missile ship and the Volgodonsk small artillery ship are among the vessels. At the end of 2013 Azerbaijani sailors plan to make a return visit to Astrakhan.

Azerbaijan has investigated reports of sales of French/German anti-tank missiles to Armenia, and has concluded that they were provided by Greece and Cyprus. Azerbaijan news agency APA reports, citing unnamed military officials:

The investigations carried out by Azerbaijan have revealed that Armenia has purchased anti-tank missiles and a lot of machine-guns and grenade throwers from Greece and Cyprus in the past two years. According to the obtained reports, Armenia has purchased more than 20 MILAN missiles from Greece. The missiles have been reportedly sold from the arsenal of Greek armed forces.

Shortly thereafter, APA reported that Azerbaijan itself had bought anti-tank missiles from Ukraine last year. Ukraine, in theory, is subject to the same sanctions as France and Germany are: the sanctions are imposed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, of which Ukraine is a member, too. But the sanctions obviously are enforced only by certain OSCE members.

Azerbaijan is complaining about reports that Armenia has required French/German anti-tank missiles in apparent violation of European sanctions against the two countries. The controversy began when an Armenian website published photos of an Armenian Ministroy of Defense exposition last year. On display, apparently, was a MILAN anti-tank missile, jointly produced by France and Germany.

And Azerbaijan has objected, reports APA: "The embassies of [France and Germany] in Azerbaijan were demanded to clarify how these countries that imposed an embargo on the sale of weapons to the conflicting parties could deliver these systems to Armenia."

Both the French and German ambassadors have responded publicly, saying they didn't do it. The French ambassador:

“I have no precise information about this sale which is very highly improbable, because the export of military equipment would be in contradiction with these sanctions. The French side is now investigating the information and the source it came from.”

"Germany is in compliance with OSCE embargoes on arms sales to Armenia and Azerbaijan. Exports of military equipment would be contrary to the sanctions. The federal government doesn’t have additional information," the embassy said.

Meanwhile, the Armenian Ministry of Defense is staying quiet on the matter.

The results for Azerbaijan proved the big surprise from the South Caucasus in this year's Global Corruption Barometer by anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International.*

Though Azerbaijan is repeatedly rated and berated as the region’s most corrupt country, many of the 1,001 Azerbaijanis surveyed for the poll by the Baku-based SIAR (Social and Marketing Research Company) had a more positive assessment of their national corruption situation than did respondents for neighboring Armenia and Georgia.

Azerbaijan long has had run-ins with allegations that senior officials and members of President Ilham Aliyev's family are cashing in on their positions, but, apparently, most respondents believe the government now is giving the corruption fight all it's got. Sixty-eight percent of respondents deemed the government's actions "effective," a rate which topped Georgia, often described as the region's main corruption-buster, by 14-percentage points.

On perceptions of corruption in the public sector, Azerbaijan finished a half point behind Georgia, roughly mid-range on a scale of one to five, while Armenia settled firmly into the trouble zone at 4.4.

Similarly, both in Azerbaijan and Georgia, public perception of corruption of political parties was 28 percent of respondents, according to Transparency International (TI). The rate is noticeably higher in Armenia, at 57 percent.

Russia has completed a big arms delivery worth about $1 billion to Azerbaijan, following reports that Baku was in fact suffering under a quiet de facto arms embargo from Moscow. The deals were in fact signed over the last two years, and most of them seem to have been previously reported. But they were apparently recently delivered to Baku and included, according to Reuters, "nearly 100 T-90C tanks, Smerch and TOS-1A multiple rocket launchers and Msta-A and Vena artillery cannons."

But wait, Bug Pit readers are saying. Didn't we just hear in April that Russia had cut off arms sales to Azerbaijan, in particular of several military aircraft deals that were in the works? That doesn't necessarily contradict today's news, given that the latter refers to various deals already signed. An interesting paragraph in the Reuters piece:

A source at the Russian Defence Ministry said the order had been on hold for some time to avoid upsetting the military balance in the South Caucasus, where Russia has a military base in Armenia and an agreement to defend the country if it comes under attack. But the deal had been pushed through at the behest of Russia's powerful arms industry, he said.